Metta World Peace – aka Ron Artest - Did Bad, but Deserves Better

Metta World Peace, the winner of the NBA’s 2011 citizenship award and a player
who has done more than any athlete alive to raise the curtain on the taboo
sports subject of mental illness, is finding out today that the past is never
really past. The player formerly known as Ron Artest delivered a dangerous,
ugly, and altogether unnecessary elbow to the back of the head of Oklahoma City
Thunder guard James Harden on Sunday. His elbow launched thousands of tweets
and blog postings best described as two parts abject horror and one part snark.
(After all, the guy changed his name to Metta World Peace – you don't have to
be Oscar Wilde to have fun with that.) But neither abject outrage nor humor
feels particularly appropriate for this story.

MWP is probably the most physically strong wing player in the league not named
LeBron James. After dunking on two Thunder players, he felt contact on the
inbound, and swung that elbow. If it was Thunder forward Kevin Durant bodying
him up, the elbow hits his chest and this column isn’t written. But the shorter
Harden caught it right behind his ear and didn’t move off the ground for a
frightening full minute. He has since been diagnosed with a concussion. MWP
will be suspended and the Thunder locker room was already referring to him as
Ron, same as he ever was.

As upsetting as the endlessly repeated slow-mo elbow replay is, we should
recognize several things. The breathless media coverage is not because of the
injury to Harden. The commentary has already far outpaced that of similar cheap shots in the NBA. Kobe Bryant had his nose
intentionally broken by Dwyane Wade during the NBA All-Star Game. Kevin Love
stepped on Luis Scola’s face. Jason Smith and Russell Westbrook in recent weeks
committed fouls that could have ended the careers of the NBA’s brightest
lights, Blake Griffin and LeBron James. But those stories were one-day
spectacles, no more and no less.

But Metta has his history, and with a history comes a narrative that allows the
media to use past as prologue. In this case, the prologue unfolded eight
seasons ago, at the “Malice in the Palace”, when Ron Artest brought a fistfight into the stands during a game in Auburn Hills,
Michigan. For many fans, Metta came to embody the highly racialized symbol of
the “NBA thug”. He received the longest suspension in NBA history (73 games),
and the question of whether he would even be allowed to return was very real.
There was a current of racism – some veiled, some not- in this whole spectacle,
as the “thug” Artest was held up for public scorn and ridicule for starting a “riot.”

But instead of falling under the assault on his character, this Ron Artest
recognized he had a problem and rebuilt his own sense of self. His problem was
depression and mental illness and he didn’t care who knew it. Artest actually thanked his psychiatrist on national television after
leading the Lakers two seasons ago to a victory in Game 7 of the NBA Finals
against the Boston Celtics. This off season, he changed his name to Metta World
Peace and has been more open and honest about his psychiatric treatment than
any athlete alive, and has done a world of good for others by taking his mental
health issues out of the closet.

Metta is quirky. He is irreverent. He is also a sweetheart of a person, whom
I’ve met and can vouch for as an athlete of uncommon personal kindness.
Of all the invective over the Harden incident, the most painful was to hear
ABC’s Jon Barry call him “Metta Weird Peace.” It was "Artest the freak
show" all over again. It’s what makes me want to point out that the NBA
has far less in-game violence than the NHL or NFL, where the elbows are flying
at all times and concussions are a daily fact of life for untold numbers. It
makes me want to ask the media defenders of James Harden why they don’t get
this worked up over the thousands of concussion victims in other sports, particularly the NFL. But
MWP is an easy villain.

At the risk of sounding as overblown as those throwing dirt on Metta World
Peace today, if that elbow above all else becomes his legacy, it would be a
tragedy: a tragedy of someone who spent years finding redemption in his private life, only to lose it in a fraction of a second.